USA Today features Nadine O’Connor and Bud Held big time
The Sports page of USA Today today has a big spread on W65 vault icon Nadine O’Connor and her partner Bud Held, with great details on their masters lives and motivations. Plus this fascinating tidbit: ” ‘With older athletes, I think they appreciate being able to be out there,’ said O’Connor, among the 526 women registered as 65-and-older Masters athletes with U.S. Track and Field. (There are about five times as many men registered in the same category.) ‘And I’ll get in trouble for saying this, but women don’t take themselves as seriously as men.’ ” The story also mentions Oshkosh nationals. Sweet.
Nadine poses for USA Today, one of the biggest papers n America.
3 Responses
Great press for MTF!
great work Nadine!!
Now here’s a vent I hesitate to post on this thread..here it goes..
Now, if we can just get our leaders (USATF Masters National Championships) on the rules committee to allow the timing device to work from either end or side of the track (depending on the wind direction) then we’d be legit.
Mondo surface, great temperatures and sprinters may have to run into a stiff headwind? Are you kidding me? Sounds like Clermont, Florida all over again….they had the manpower, they had the facility but didn’t have the leadership to make the effort to accommodate the athletes at a WMA meet.
I don’t understand why a committee would only allow it to be run in one direction. Small town HS track meets take the camera and timing device from one end or side to the other with no hesitation. We have the manpower to move it. Some people want fantastic times leading into the World Championships in Finland….why must sprinters run into a potential headwind and get not as impressive times?
I am again baffled at this news that our rules committee shared with the timing gurus….maybe the sprinters will get lucky and get a tailwind from the north…but as of today each one of us would have had nearly a season low time…based on the direction and speed of the wind…
Come on rules committee….a group of us spoke with the timing device guru and he said he could get it done if you guys (RULES COMMITTEE) allowed him to…
DO WHAT’S RIGHT AND MAKE IT HAPPEN!!
Sprinters!!? What’s the worst that can happen to a sprinter running into the wind?? A slow time. What about us poor hurdlers! Cripes! In high school in South Dakota (o.k., way before FAT timing) they would always move the 100m and high hurdles to run with wind. The coaches with the farmcaps and fat thumbs on stop watches would just walk down to one end, while the cheerleaders and the finish line string would head for the other end.
Now it is true that some high schoolers and college/open/elite hurdlers can have problems with tailwinds, which can push them too soon into the next hurdle and screw up their steps. But for most high school hurdlers and nearly all master hurdlers over 40, a headwind can be a death sentence.
So if you can run the hurdles with wind in high school, why, for the love and protection of masters hurdlers, won’t USAT&F and WMA run the masters hurdles with wind??? (Like making us run into a 15 mph wind for the high hurdles finals at the WAVA-Buffalo meet in 1995.)
Perspiring minds want to know.
Here are the South Dakota High School T&F rules:
P. Reversing Races Due to Wind
The meet director and meet referee will consider the reversal of the 100m dash, 100m hurdles, 110m high hurdles provided the following conditions exist:
1. The anemometer registers a minimum of 8 MPH
2. The wind is blowing into the face of the runner.
3. The decision for reversal should be made 15 minutes prior to the event
4. If an anemometer is not available, the decision to reverse any races will be made by the Meet Director, Meet Manager and Meet Referee.
5. The decision to change the direction of a field event will be made by the Meet Director, Meet Manager, Meet Referee and the Head Field Judge.
NOTE: If FAT is not available at both ends, the 100m dash will not be reversed.
For more thoughts on “wind-aided,” see my NMN False Start Column from ten years ago (July 1999)
http://www.geocities.com/ortmanmarchand/fs2.html
In my country we had a yearly hurdle day on a track with 110m on both sides. So they moved according to the wind. There are only a few tracks where that is possible. And the hurdle day isn’t held anymore.
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